Partying like Pirates...

ADC

Sunday Herald - 27 August 2006
â€˜Ahoy there, I be wantinâ€™ all you landlubbers to party like pirates â€¦ Arrrrrrrr!â€™
By Jenifer Johnston

Heâ€™s got more experience with parishioners than parrots and would rather see a winsome lass walk down the aisle than the plank but the Rev Robin Hill is a jolly Roger at heart â€“ and the official chaplain to the global pirate movement.
The East Lothian Church of Scotland minister has been capivated by plans for International Talk Like A Pirate Day and is set to make next weekend a pirate-fest of games and events to celebrate the reopening of his Longniddry church following itâ€™s six-month renovation.

Hill is hopeful that others will join in the fun â€“ as are the organisers of the global pirate day, who are appealing for Scots to organise their own parties and events in time for the celebration on September 19.

â€œI think it will catch on, Iâ€™m sure weâ€™re not going to be the only event in Scotland for very long,â€ he said.

â€œ I think that in this world of ours, where suffering and violence are rife it is a really good thing to be able to have a bit of fun at something silly when you get the chance.â€

Hill admitted his job as a minister jars slightly with the pirate ethos of theft and robbery: â€œItâ€™s a bit tricky for me as I trained in law.

â€œPiracy is one of the most outlawed crimes in the world ,â€ he said. â€œ There is a dark side to it, it is bloodthirsty. But people are attracted to it because piracy has a certain romance and adventure about it.â€

Pirate-lovers from Australia, South Africa, the US and even Antarctica have announced plans for buccaneer bachelor contests and sponsored singalongs.

One of the founders of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, the â€œprofessional pirateâ€ John Baur â€“ aka Olâ€™ Chumbucket â€“ is urging Scots to start organising their own events.

â€œIt would be great if more Scots get behind this,â€ he said. â€œItâ€™s not like running a marathon or anything â€“ you just have to say â€˜aarrrâ€™ a lot. People all over the world are joining in with this and the more the merrier, frankly.â€

Baur added that since September 19 is a Tuesday, people who canâ€™t party should â€œ just start slipping pirate language in at work: for example try answering the phone â€˜ahoy there, weâ€™re John Smith the lawyers, who can we scuttle for ye?â€™â€

Baur held the first Talk Like A Pirate Day in 1995 after a private joke with his friend Mark Summers, aka Capâ€™n Slappy, â€œgot out of handâ€. They are now known across the US as â€œThe Pirate Guysâ€, with Baur and his wife about to appear on an episode of the US version of Wife Swap â€¦ as a pirate couple.

In the US, academics and cultural commentators are now discussing pirate culture as a social movement. The rise in pirate-themed entertainment is attributed to the mid-1990s, before the release of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies. The movement has spawned theme bars, bands, festivals and magazines and influenced fashion: a pirate-themed show has even opened in Las Vegas.

Pulitzer-winning writer Dave Barry, who helped spread the movement in the US, also urged Scots to organise pirate day events. He said: â€œThis should be huge in Scotland, which produced many of historyâ€™s greatest pirates â€“ Plaidbeard, Long John Haggis â€“ the list goes on.â€

He added that the â€œbeauty and joyâ€ of Talk Like A Pirate Day was its simplicity. â€œNo matter what anyone says to you, you always have an appropriate response â€¦ which is of course: â€˜ARRRRRRRRRR.â€™â€

However, Professor Christine Geraghty from the department of theatre, film and television studies at Glasgow University said the post-movie pirate excitement is â€œmore a fad than a social movementâ€.

â€œWeâ€™ve seen this before €“ Bonnie and Clyde for example led to a lot of angst about gangsters, and a fashion spin-off with pinstripe suits. But the pirate fixation sounds more of a fad than something that could become a movement.â€